* Economic Opportunity and Social
Issues Trump Environment as Top Concerns for Poor and Minorities;
Nationwide Survey of Environmental Justice Groups Indicates that
Environmental Goals Must be Balanced with Economic Needs

* Africa Cries Out for Genetically-Modified
Foods; African-American Leadership Network Joined by African
Leaders in Call for Providing Africa With the Tools to Feed Its
People

Economic Opportunity and Social Issues Trump Environment
as Top Concerns for Poor and Minorities; Nationwide Survey of
Environmental Justice Groups Indicates that Environmental Goals
Must be Balanced with Economic Needs

A recent survey of 69 environmental justice groups conducted
by the National Center For Public Policy Research found that these
groups believe that environmental laws are unfair to minorities
and the poor because, although these groups are least able to
pay, they must bear the greatest costs for adhering to those laws
through lost jobs and higher prices. The groups, a diverse collection
of African-American, Hispanic and Native American activist organizations,
also said government should start considering the negative economic
impact of proposed environmental laws on impoverished minorities.

These groups have identified themselves, to varying degrees,
as concerned about environmental justice for minorities and the
poor. The organizations are concerned that minorities not be inflicted
with excessive environmental problems. But, as the National Center
survey discovered, true environmental justice, according to these
groups, also means taking into account the urgent need for economic
improvement, better-paying jobs, educational opportunity and access
to better health care.

When asked to rank their top public policy concern out of a
list of six issues - education, health care, racism, economic
advancement, environmental progress, crime - only 6% of environmental
justice groups ranked the environment as their top priority. An
overwhelming 91% of respondents ranked education, health care,
fighting racism and economic advancement as more important than
environmental issues.

Likewise, 72% of environmental justice groups disagreed with
the idea that low-income communities should be deprived of jobs,
higher incomes and other economic opportunities if that is necessary
to enforce environmental laws and regulations. This concern for
balancing economic issues with environmental concerns was reflected
throughout the survey. For example, 57% of surveyed groups said
that environmental goals must be balanced by concern for economic
opportunities for the poor. This includes 20% who believe that
minorities must be protected against costly environmental regulations
that deprive them of much-needed jobs.

The need for introducing a sense of balance to environmental
policy was of pre-eminent concern. When asked if environmental
laws are applied unevenly such that minorities pay the greatest
costs, in terms of lost jobs and higher prices, of environmental
regulations, 63% agreed. In addition, 47% of environmental justice
groups believe that environmental regulatory agencies are unsympathetic
to the needs and concerns of the poor and minorities. 74% of environmental
justice groups believe that government should be required to determine
that proposed environmental laws would not have a disproportionate
impact on minority and low-income communities before being adopted.

"Clearly, these poor and minority advocacy groups see
environmental policy as being implemented without due concern
for equally important economic and social needs," said John
Carlisle, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's
Environmental Policy Task Force. "What this survey shows
is that the time is long overdue to start balancing environmental
goals with the poor's urgent need for economic betterment."

Contact John Carlisle at The National Center For Public Policy
Research at 202-507-6398 or [email protected].

Africa Cries Out for Genetically-Modified Foods;
African-American Leadership Network Joined by African Leaders
in Call for Providing Africa With the Tools to Feed Its People

African leaders are appealing to the United States government
to ignore the misguided political protests against genetically-modified
foods so that those afflicted with diseases and starvation on
the African continent might have hope for the future. Project
21 members are supportive of these efforts to help blacks in Africa
as well as educating all peoples of the world about the benefits
of advancements in food technology.

A 1997 report by the World Bank and the Consultative Group
on International Agriculture Research estimated that biotechnology
would increase agricultural production in the developing world
by as much as 25%. In Africa, genetically-modified rice that is
rich in Vitamin A could play a significant role in the fight to
wipe out malnutrition among poor citizens. A modified banana is
also being developed that will provide an affordable inoculation
against hepatitis. Politically powerful opposition groups in Europe
and North America, however, are trying to stop further biotechnical
research and development. Opposition to biotech research was one
of the causes of the radical protestors who tried to shut down
the World Trade Organization in Seattle last year.

"I consider this opposition as elitism in its cruelest
form since the poorest members of the population, blacks in particular,
are going to suffer because of it," wrote Project 21 member
John Meredith in a recent New Visions Commentary that was distributed
by Project 21.

Hassan Adamu, the Nigerian Minister for Agricultural and Rural
Development, echoed Meredith's sentiments. In a Washington Post
commentary published on September 11, Adamu wrote, "Millions
of Africans - far too many of them children - are suffering from
malnutrition and hunger. Agricultural biotechnology offers a way
to stop the suffering... To deny desperate, hungry people the
means to control their futures by presuming to know what is best
for them is not only paternalistic but morally wrong."

On August 21, Kenyan President Daniel T. arap Moi wrote to
President Bill Clinton about providing Africa with new genetically-modified
foods. Moi wrote, "Today, the international community is
on the verge of the biotechnology revolution which Africa cannot
afford to miss... Africa risks a biotechnology gap if we fail
to participate in this project just in the same way that concern
has been expressed about the digital gap in information technology,
without which deliberate intervention may result in a further
marginalization of our continent."

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